Criminal justice reporter

An Athens man was sentenced to life in prison after a Clarke County jury convicted him Monday of a 2012 shooting death in the Stonehenge neighborhood of Athens.

After listening to a week’s worth of testimony, jurors found 24-year-old Charles Rodney Wilson guilty of malice murder and all other charges in a nine-count indictment.

Authorities said he fatally shot Jesse Franklin Howard on Oct. 25, 2012, as the result of a drug dispute.

They argued that Wilson confronted Howard on Old Monroe Road in Stonehenge because he believed Howard had stolen drugs from him. He shot the victim once in the head.

Howard was still alive when officers arrived and was taken to Athens Regional Medical Center, where he later died.

Investigators interviewed several witnesses and subsequently identified Wilson as the alleged shooter. He surrendered to authorities five days later.

In addition to malice murder, Wilson was found guilty of two counts of felony murder, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and four counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime.

Prosecutors had sought a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole, but Superior Court Senior Judge Robert Adamson took Wilson’s age into consideration when passing sentence.

Under Georgia law, the Board of Pardons and Parole cannot entertain the possibility of parole for offenders sentenced to life until they have served 30 years.